THE outing began at the Gramarye smallholding at 07h00 on a very hot day. The garden provided a good start with a number of birds and then about a dozen of us walked down to the river.

Boston Birders – Hennie and Decklan (Crystelle)

Boston Birders (Crystelle)

Boston Birders (Crystelle)

There was plenty of birding activity starting with a Red-throated Wryneck.

Red-throated Wryneck

Red-throated Wryneck

In the tall grass there were Fan-tailed and Red-collared Widowbirds flitting around, Levaillant’s Cisticolas and Common and Orange-breasted Waxbills. Along the stream there were Dark-capped Yellow Warbler, African Reed and Little Rush Warblers. Hadeda and Sacred Ibis, Burchell’s Coucal, Cattle Egret, Red-eyed and Cape Turtle-Dove, African Stonechat, Cape Grassbird, all contributed to make up the numbers.

Black-bellied Starling – Decklan

Little Rush-Warbler – Decklan

Dark-capped Yellow Warbler – Decklan

Dark-capped Yellow Warbler

Dark-capped Yellow Warbler

Levaillant’s Cisticola – Decklan

House Sparrow – juvenile

Levaillant’s Cisticola

Pin-tailed Whydah

Southern Red Bishop

White Stork – Decklan

White Stork

White Stork

White Stork

Mystery Flycatcher

Heard, but not seen, were African Rail and Red-chested Flufftail. The highlight for Hennie and Decklan Jordaan was catching a glimpse of a large bird disappearing in the trees, pursuing it across the river and finding a Barn Owl which Decklan photographed.

Barn Owl – Decklan

And another surprise – photographed by Decklan.

Cuckoo Finch- Decklan

On the way back we saw one of the Grey Crowned Cranes currently nesting in a pan in the wetland feeding in a home paddock next to the garden.

Driving to the forest cottages on Boston View farm we saw several Amur Falcons, a pair of Lanner Falcons, a Rock Kestrel and a Steppe Buzzard.

Amur Falcon – male – Decklan

Amur Falcon – female – Decklan

Steppe Buzzard – Decklan

Amur Falcon

Amur Falcon

At Boston View we parked at Bottom Cottage . From there we did a forest walk.

Bottom Cottage

Bottom Cottage View

Forest beside Bottom Cottage

Photographers bush bashing

Going somewhere

Watsonia

Watsonia

Pink Flower

Pink Flower

Tree Fern

Cape Chestnut – Calodendrum capense

The forest walk provided a change of habitat and we had to focus on hearing birds as much as trying to see them. Bar-throated Apalis, Green-backed Camaroptera, Sombre Greenbul, Terrestrial Brownbul, Cape Batis were amongst the birds marked as present, while another highlight was Blue-mantled Crested-Flycatcher.

Yellow Bishop – Decklan

Yellow Bishop – female

Yellow Bishop – male

Yellow Bishop – male

Blue-mantled Crested Flycatcher – Decklan

Blue-mantled Crested Flycatcher – Decklan

Black-headed Heron (SLK)

Drakensberg Prinia

Then it was lunch on the verandah of the cottage overlooking a dam, where an inexhaustible Decklan checked out the frogs as well.

Green striped Frog

Green striped Frog

And then it was time to leave Bottom Cottage.

The Moon

On my SABAP2 atlas list I notched up over 60 species which included a pair of African Fish-Eagles circling Gramarye after we had returned home.

Super day and lovely photos, bringing a sense of being there – at Gramarye and Boston View farm in Boston on a summer’s day – 60 birds is a wonderful record and some very special ones amongst them. That’s Boston – plenty to see and enjoy